


Everybody Needs a Rodney McKay

by jjtaylor



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-17
Updated: 2010-02-17
Packaged: 2017-10-07 08:35:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,696
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/63325
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jjtaylor/pseuds/jjtaylor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rodney decides to take a permanent vacation off-planet.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Everybody Needs a Rodney McKay

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to phineasjones for beta. This story was originally posted on May 8th, 2006.

John hears the shouting before he's even close to the science lab, a steady stream of Czech interrupted with the occasional curse of Rodney's name. It only gets louder as John approaches the lab, and he's about to ask Rodney what he's done this time to make Zelenka's voice reach that particular pitch when he steps inside and realizes Rodney isn't there. Zelenka abruptly shifts to English and unleashes his fury on John.

"It was you!" Zelenka shouts. "You and the broken window! He would not stop talking about the glass. Where did he go? I know that you know!"

"I don't know where he is," John says, raising his hands defensively. There's a note of alarm in John's voice that surprises even him, and it shuts Zelenka up long enough for John to radio Elizabeth.

"Have someone check all the labs. I'm on my way to his quarters."

"John, what's wrong?" Elizabeth asks, that tempered calm in her voice that's now so familiar.

"Something is," John says, half to himself.

"John?"

"Rodney's missing," John says, already jogging down the corridor to Rodney's rooms.

"Are you sure?" Elizabeth asks.

He's more certain of it every second.

  
He radios Elizabeth to stop the search when he discovers there is nothing in Rodney's drawers except a medical gown. John is joined by Ronon, Beckett, Teyla and Elizabeth, their search parties converging around Rodney's closet.

"I wondered where that had got to," Beckett says, crumpling the medical gown and tossing it back into the drawer.

Elizabeth has her arms held stiffly by her side, and John watches as she drums her fingers against her thighs, slowly and then faster. "Are we talking kidnapping?" she asks.

John doesn't know what they're talking about. This is Atlantis, where a room could have swallowed Rodney, where something they think is a datatpad could have turned Rodney invisible. His mind is working faster than he can keep up with, conjuring scenarios and dismissing them just as quickly, and he keeps stumbling over the fact that there's a neat row of empty hangers where Rodney's uniforms used to hang.

"Let's check the gate activity," Elizabeth says, and John can tell she's taking the hangers as evidence that Rodney's departure was voluntary, too. Everyone walks to the control room as though at any moment they're all going to burst into a sprint.

John stares at the gate symbols, trying to recall every hidden place Rodney ever told him about around Atlantis, to remember if there had been a planet Rodney had particularly liked. The realization hits him like a punch in the stomach.

"Wait," John says. "I think I know where he is. Dial M1J-658."

"What the hell happened on that mission?" Elizabeth asks, a flush of anger rising in her cheeks. John wants to say that it matches her red shirt, but he realizes that's just the panic talking and he's already in enough trouble.

"Assemble a team," Elizabeth says when John doesn't answer. "You're not going back there alone."

Beckett looks to John. "Should I...?"

"Just. Be ready." John says. It's the closest he's going to come to admitting he's worried.

"John," Elizabeth says, standing closer to him, so that he only he can hear her.

"I just have a hunch." John adjusts his P90. Elizabeth frowns at the gun. "Elizabeth, look...."

"Go," she says. "Find Rodney."

"We should not keep things from her." Teyla whispers, falling into step at John's side, a few feet ahead of Ronon just before they pass through the gate.

"We don't know if that has anything to..." John starts, and then stops. "Once we find Rodney," John promises and Teyla only nods.

  
The world is familiar; the mustard yellow horizon, the mild heat, the crisp smell of grass and sand. It makes John uneasy. Teyla stays at his side and Ronon drops back. "Quiet," John says, an observation not a command. The villagers ignore them for the most part, and keep to their gardening and their laundry as though they weren't carrying rifles under their topcoats.

"So, no one's going to come to us, then," John says. "That means McKay isn't driving anyone crazy yet."

"So you believe he has come here willingly?" Teyla asks.

"He came through the gate willingly," John says with conviction. "McKay would have made some noise."

Ronon gives a sideways nod of his head and John turns to see a boy approaching them with a basket of bread. "We didn't think you would return," the boy says, and he's not as young as John first thought, maybe ten. Too small to hold a rifle, but John wonders if there's not a knife tucked into his boot.

"Have you seen Dr. Rodney McKay? He was with us on our last visit," Teyla asks in a voice calmer and kinder than John could have managed.

The boy smiles and directs them to the small house at the end of what's unmistakably a cul-de-sac. The roof is patched and uneven, but the stone walkway has been recently swept. John imagines Rodney tied to a chair inside, or bleeding all over the floor, or no Rodney at all and only an ambush waiting for them.

John glances and Ronon and Teyla, and then walks up to the front door and knocks.

There is a rustle, and then the door is flung open. "Oh," Rodney says, stepping back from the door. "Well. Come in."

  
A week before Rodney's disappearance, John proposed the first exploration of M1J-658. Teyla had never heard of the planet, and though that didn't necessarily bode ill, neither was it a good sign. John said, "Well, maybe you just didn't have the time," since all sensor readings seemed to confirm that the world was a suitable climate with a fairly small population. "Could be food there, could be friends," John said. "Worth a try."

When they stepped through the gate, it was dusty and hot and it reminded John of having to mow the lawn on a hot summer day. There was something irresistibly natural about it, and yet wearisome. Rodney coughed and cleared his throat. John watched him touch the water pack, reassuring himself it was there, and then move the datapad around until he could see the screen without the glare of the sun. "There," Rodney said, pointing and then coughing again, and they made their way quietly up a series of short hills, pebbles sliding down underneath their feet.

Rodney brushed dust from his forehead and reached for his water, tipping his head back just slightly to drink. John realized for the first time how dry his own mouth was.

John opened the negotiations with the first villager who made eye contact, whose name was Pete and who claimed the authority to negotiate trade.

"Well, what do you have to trade, then, Pete?" John asked.

"What do you have to trade?" Pete responded and John tried not to laugh. The people they met rarely had a sense of humor.

"I don't think we're getting off to the right start," John tried. There was a sudden, loud burst of gunfire and John shouted, "Get down!" his ears ringing. It was followed by another burst, louder, closer. "Where the hell is that coming from?" John risked looking behind him and found half the villagers who had been out had disappeared, presumably into their houses, the other half were in an attack position, with rifles mounted on their shoulders. "Whoah," John said, as the villagers began to return fire over them. Rodney hollered, "There," and indicated a house just a few feet from them. They ran for the door and tumbled inside, hiding with their backs against the walls, trying to get clear of the windows.

John and Rodney crouched in one corner of a room, Teyla and Ronon in the opposite corner. John looked around and only half-heard Rodney's complaints that these people seemed to have way too many windows. A small wooden table, a rug in the middle of the floor, a small fire still burning. John smelled hay, and something savory that he thought might be soup. Rodney's hand clenched when someone pounded against a window. He said, "Haven't these people ever heard of curtains?" and squished closer to John so as not to be seen.

"What the hell was that out there?" John asked.

"Quite a lot of weaponry under their jackets," Ronon offered.

The door burst open and Ronon had his gun on the man before he finished his sentence. The man, who had actually landed inside the house in a sort of low crawl and kicked the door shut behind him, didn't seem to notice any of them. "Could have gotten my head right there. 37 years of accumulated scientific knowledge and the only one in the village who knows how to reconfigure the...." he mumbled, nervous and fast.

John watched as the man stirred a pot over the fire, added two logs to the flames, and muttered something that sounded to John like _synchotron radius is m v gamma over QB_.

"Excuse me," John said and the man jumped, reaching for the fire poker and pointing it at John and Rodney and then turning around to jab the poker in the direction of Ronon and Teyla.

"Hi," John tried again. A burst of gunfire hit the door and they all crouched to the ground. "Can you maybe tell us about what's going on out there?" John says. "We're traders, here to - "

"I know who you are," the man spat out. "You'll forgive me for being shocked that you were in my house, but I think you'll admit that my fear wasn't unfounded, especially when you have men who – well, that one looks like his hair could whip me to death," he said, gesturing at Ronon.

Ronon laughed and lowered his gun.

"It's a feud," the man said, now nudging the new firewood with the poker. "Generations old. Quite stupid really. Someone stole someone else's livestock and – you can figure out the rest. The village is divided. You came to trade with us. The other side wanted to trade, too. We don't do things together."

"And which side are you on?" Teyla asked.

"The right one, obviously. Anyway, give it a few minutes, it'll wrap up before sundown. No one fights in the dark. It's one of the rules of engagement, if you can call that a rule. Now L'Hopital's rule, that's a rule I'd...."

The gunfire roared, like the end of a fireworks display, then faded, and then the man declared, "That should be the end of it."

John felt Rodney relax slightly, but John's eyes didn't leave the man as he moved around the house, picking up a few pieces of splintered wood from the door and tossing them into the fire.

"Safe," The man said, and switched on a light.

"You have electricity?" John asked, taking another look around the dirt floor, the plain wooden furniture, the obviously hand-woven blanket tossed over the back of a chair.

"No, it's obviously some sort of energy source," Rodney said, in awe. "Do you by any chance have a ZPM?"

"Rodney," John warned, at the same time the man said, "Do _you_ have one?"

Rodney shook his head quickly. The man shrugged sadly in a way that reminded John very distinctly of Rodney. "Too bad," he said. "I'm Ralph, by the way. Do you want some soup?" he asked, getting out some bowls. "Potatoes might be a little soft, I had to leave it to go to the lab." John cautiously got up and took a seat at the table and Rodney, Teyla, and Ronon followed. The chairs squeaked and both Ralph and Rodney jumped, but only slightly. John wasn't sure anyone else noticed.

"Wait," Ralph said, with such urgency that John thought there might have been time for the rival faction to get in here and poison the soup, "Are any of you allergic to citrus?"

Rodney's mouth dropped open.

"There's not actual citrus in it. But there's a plant native to here and two other planets in our solar system that I've tested and causes the same allergic reaction in people who are allergic to citrus." Ralph looked as though he was about to launch into a deeper explanation, and John was hoping that wasn't the case. "I'm deathly allergic to citrus but I must have built up an immunity to the herb as I've been eating it since I was a baby because it's still incredibly dangerous to visitors. Not that we get that many visitors. But people just don't pay enough attention to these things."

"No, they don't," Rodney said indignantly, and refused the soup with a righteousness usually reserved for when he saved the city.

  
John's first attempt to retrieve Rodney from his exile and return to Atlantis with him is not going the way John had hoped. He sees his frustration reflected in Ronon and Teyla.

"What the hell is going on, McKay?" Ronon asks.

"I need to talk to him. Alone," John says. Teyla's eyebrows leap into her hairline, but she and Ronon turn to go without question.

"What the hell is going on, McKay?" John asks when he hears the door close.

"Oh, wow," Rodney says, turning his back on him. "Now I know why you couldn't say that in front of everyone else."

"Is this about what happened on the mission?"

"Colonel, I moved to another planet. The reason is a good one, and obviously intensely personal."

John feels suddenly helpless. He wants to shout at Rodney, to order him back to Atlantis, to check the back of his neck for evidence of poison darts, to tell him how absolutely stupid he's being coming back to this planet. He's worried about Rodney, and he doesn't usually have to worry about Rodney, and it's unsettling to have his anxiety constantly cranked up high just because Rodney decided it's time for an off-world vacation.

"We need to...get going..." John says weakly. He can't seem to shout at Rodney, though he decides he'll tell Teyla and Ronon he ordered McKay back to no avail.

"Go," Rodney says, and turns his back, like he's dismissing John from his lab. It's eerie, and not a good sign.

  
When he returns to Atlantis, John finds Elizabeth is pacing in her office, and she's giving John a look that tells him she is certain this is all his fault.

"And you're sure he's not being forced to stay?"

"There were no signs of captivity," Teyla agrees.

"Why did he leave? I need him here. We can't run half of these things without him," Elizabeth says, exasperated. "We need to find out what's wrong, and what will bring him back."

John looks out the window, only distantly hearing Elizabeth's questions. On one of the faraway wings, someone is sweeping up the last shards of broken glass outside, and starting to hammer a new frame for the window.

  
After word got out that their first visit to M1J-658 had featured more gunfire than had been seen in the total exploratory missions for the month, John knew that it was going to take some convincing to get Elizabeth to agree to a second visit to a hostile planet, even if the hostility wasn't directed at them.

"Gunfire?" Elizabeth said.

"Listen, this amazingly brilliant scientist discovered...." Rodney began.

"They didn't fire at us. Not them. Well, another group of them," John said, over him.

"...and he's done botanical research that..."

"There's a feud that's split the village in two," John explained.

"And we can't trade with one without trading with the other?" Elizabeth asked.

"Well, we can if we're secretive about it."

"Forget trade!" Rodney shouted. "The combined scientific accomplishment of this Ralph – it's a nice name, isn't it?"

John didn't think he had ever seen Elizabeth with quite that expression of befuddlement when Rodney started raving about Ralph.

"We had a hard time getting Rodney away from this...scientific asset," John said.

"Is there something wrong with me recognizing genius when I see it?"

"Of course not. Especially not if it's a mirror image," John shot back.

"Excuse me?" Elizabeth asked.

"The scientist we met was uncannily like our Dr. McKay." John explained. "In mannerisms, appearance, and, well, disposition."

"Well, that's strange," Elizabeth responded, tilting her head and eying first John and then Rodney skeptically, as if waiting for the punch line to their joke.

"Not really," Rodney jumped in and John smirked. "Statistically," Rodney started, and then decided to try another approach. "Obviously every world needs someone like me."

  
Rodney has only been gone twenty hours and John is constantly aware of his absence. He looks for Rodney in the mess hall, bargaining for refills of coffee. He expects to see him running out of one of the unexplored wings with a new piece of Ancient equipment in his hands. Except that around every corner John is faced with the startling fact that Rodney is not there.

At the same time, he finds that he cannot avoid running into Elizabeth. He remembers whole days he would have gone without seeing her, but now they've crossed paths four or fives times just in the past hour. The more John tries to avoid her, the harder it proves, until he decides she must be following him.

"John," she says, stopping him before he can escape into the jumper bay, "the consensus is that if anyone can bring him back, it's you."

"Who says that? What does that mean?"

"Just that," Elizabeth said, not giving an inch. "I think its clear Rodney isn't coming back on his own, and I don't want to wait for him anyway. I need him here. We all need him here, and you need to do whatever it takes to get him back."

"You want me to kidnap him? Use force?" John says it jokingly, but the truth is he's already considered it.

"That's not what I mean," Elizabeth says. John stares at her and she adds, "Come see me when you're ready to go back."

Rodney's lab is weirdly still. Even Zelenka looks out of sorts, like he's worried he's the next one who's going to be visited by the inexplicable urge to pack up and leave in the middle of the night.

At the weekly briefing on the status of ongoing research, Zelenka is in Rodney's chair. Everyone looks nervous about it.

John spends the whole meeting waiting for Rodney to come storming in late, a brilliant theory half-formed, his eyes unfocused like he's still really in the lab, astounded by his own genius. For Rodney to interrupt every one of Zelenka's sentences, to disagree with Elizabeth until he catches on that she's encouraging him. Instead, Zelenka is quiet and gives his report in a steady, even voice that is so calm and reasoned that John wants to stick his tongue out at everyone like he's back in elementary school and breaking the rules just because he can.

It's after that meeting that John insists on going back. He practices on his way to Elizabeth's office. "I can fix this," he says before she even looks up from her paperwork.

  
Coming back from their second visit to M1J-658 involved unscheduled gate activity, a few flesh wounds, and John sliding in through the gate on his stomach just behind a panting Rodney and a dust-covered Ronon and Teyla.

"I'd say trading is not safe," John said, dusting himself off.

Rodney was quiet as he wiped the small trickle of blood from the gash over his eyebrow.

"What happened?" Elizabeth demanded. "An ambush?"

"Ralph got kidnapped by the other side of the feud. They found out he was assisting us and decided to use him as bait in order to draw us to them."

"The idiot," Rodney murmured.

"The villagers are unpredictably hostile," Teyla said.

"And it's not safe for the research aspect Rodney was...." John began, but Rodney stepped forward, gesturing wildly.

"I'm not interested in collaborating. I HATE him," Rodney burst out.

Everyone went quiet.

"Well," Elizabeth said. "Good job on getting everyone out safe. I'll look forward to reading your reports," Elizabeth said, the slightest quirk at her mouth and John knew she meant it.

John caught everyone out in the hallway. "So...." he said, shoving his hands in his pockets.

"We're not going to speak of it!" Rodney shouted, briefly touching his fingers to his mouth in a way John wasn't sure he'd ever seen before, and stormed off.

"That okay with everyone?" John asked. Ronon and Teyla nodded. "Fine with me, too," John said.

  
John heads for Rodney's new house for the second time in 36 hours, trying to appear as casual as he can. Sure, he frequently makes off-world visits to see friends who have relocated. He doesn't like this village, but it's less about the village now and more about the fact that Rodney's here and he shouldn't be. John knocks on the door, trying not to think of it as Rodney's home.

"So you're the emissary," Rodney asks. John just stands there, trying to get a read on Rodney's face.

"What's going on, McKay?"

Rodney just stares at a place just above John's left shoulder and for the first time, John worries that there really is something wrong with Rodney.

"I didn't expect they'd send you," Rodney says quietly.

"No one sent me," John says. "Can I come in? Do they have sandwiches here? Coffee?"

John pushes his way in and Rodney immediately yields. John thinks Rodney almost looks glad to see him, but other than that, Rodney seems himself, arrogant, impatient, hyper-focused. He shows John maps of the planet, meteorological data he's gathered, scientific calculations about crops and population growth and theories about their energy source. There are a few moments when Rodney hesitates, when he's just looking at John. The third time it happens, John decides to take a chance.

"Rodney, can we talk about - " John halted when Rodney spoke right over him, waited a moment, and tried again. "Rodney."

"No! We can't talk about it." And then Rodney's face was shadowed, the corners of his mouth dropping into a frown. "You've got to get back to the gate," he says. He gestures to an elaborate sundial out the window.

"What?" John says, but then he heard the distant bell clanging, a sound he now recognized was the signal of an impending attack.

"You have five minutes to get to the gate," Rodney says. "The feud. It's convenient that they time it, albeit disturbing."

"Come with me."

"Are you kidding? It's safer if I stay indoors."

"Come back with me, Rodney. You're going to get yourself killed here."

Rodney looks away. "I can't." They both hear the distant gunfire. "Go!" Rodney shouts, and John lets the door close behind him.

  
John is not back in Atlantis ten minutes before Elizabeth radios and summons him to her office.

"What happened on that mission?" Elizabeth is standing with her hands on her hips, scowling at John, who is joined by Teyla and Ronon. Elizabeth is asking the same question she's been asking for two days straight, as though it's the only thing she remembers how to say. She looks furious and John thinks maybe she is angry enough to have forgotten all other words. The Atlantean sea shines through the windows behind her, the sky clear. John knows she has called this meeting because he's now failed to bring Rodney back twice. "I know you leave so many things off your reports."

"We do not!" John insists.

Elizabeth shakes her head. "Come on, for one thing, they never match up. And don't even think about meeting first to compare," Elizabeth says, eyeing them as Ronon and John gave each other a look.

"Well, if you want more detailed accounts," Ronon says, looking mischievous, and John covers his eyes with his hand so as to block both Ronon and Elizabeth out.

Teyla seems to decide at that moment that it is her responsibility to come clean.

"Ralph kissed Colonel Sheppard."

"Kissed?" Elizabeth says, looking perplexed.

"After we rescued him," Teyla says. "In gratitude."

"There was tongue," Ronon says.

"Hey, there was not!" John protests, as Teyla stands up, trying to explain the rest of the rescue.

"Interesting," is all Elizabeth says after she listens to Teyla's explanation. She dismisses them all by turning her back on them to look out at the water.

John considered what happened with Ralph to be pretty typical rescue scenario and John pulled off what he considered a pretty seamless rescue. That was until they got to safety and John was about to say, "Ok, let's end the trade negotiations here," when Ralph's arms were suddenly around him and Ralph's dusty lips were pressing against John's.

The thing that John remembers most clearly is the sound Rodney made, a strangled protest, before Ralph pulled away.

  
On the third attempt John makes to bring Rodney back to Atlantis, he notices that Rodney's cabin has started to take the shape of someplace that's actually lived-in, resembling Rodney's quarters in a way John finds disturbing.

"They had pancakes this morning at breakfast," John says, at a loss for what else to tell Rodney except an exceptionally boring catalog of day to day life at Atlantis in Rodney's absence. "They weren't bad."

For a moment, Rodney looks ecstatic. "Pancakes!" And then his expression quickly resolves itself into disdain. "You've finally figured it out, Colonel. The reason I left Atlantis was because of its lack of pancakes."

John skips breakfast the next morning, eating a Powerbar instead.

  
A storm had hit the day before Rodney's disappearance. When John thinks of it now, as he skirts through the corridors trying to avoid Elizabeth, Zelenka, Teyla, anyone who has questions for him, he hears Zelenaka's accusation,_It was you. You and the broken window._ Zelenka is right, without even knowing the whole story. Zelenka has pieced together enough to know what it has taken John this long to figure out. He is the reason Rodney left, and he has to bring him back.

John had found Rodney in his lab, cursing. The Atlantean sea looked like it was churning up from the bottom. Rodney raved about wind patterns and John wanted to take the jumper out to see what it felt like. John used Rodney's lab as a barometer, a measurement of how bad things were going to get. Rodney's state of mind was almost always a more accurate indicator of what level of crisis John could expect than any other official report.

"Another hurricane?" John asked, when Rodney did not immediately look up from his datatpad.

"No, not another hurricane, but we're going to need to withstand a significant amount of bad weather out here. We are in the middle of an ocean. See, I almost predicted this one. Look at these calculations." He thrust a notebook at John. There were diagrams and John flipped through, studying Rodney's handwriting.

"We have meteorologists here," John said with a smirk. He grabbed a pen and doodled a sun with a smiling face in the corner.

"We have one meteorologist," Rodney said. "And she only knows Earth weather patterns." He snatched the notebook back from John.

Rodney tried to explain what he'd discovered about the structurally weak areas of the city but he was too impatient with the failings of his computer model and urged John into the transporter and down the hallways, all the while talking about sea floor depth until he stopped suddenly at the wide panel of windows on one of the observations decks. Rodney jabbed a finger at the lower wing. "There," he said. "That's where we'll have trouble, and I'm going to recommend to Elizabeth that we take precautions now before I have to run out there in the middle of the storm and fix the outer floor while standing knee-deep in sea-water."

John didn't see the tree limb come crashing through the window in front of them, only Rodney's face, his mouth open in a wordless shout as he grabbed John around the middle, tackling him, and they crashed hard onto the floor. John could feel a few tiny shards of glass slice the side of his hand.

"What was - ?" John gasped.

"Fuck." Rodney groaned.

"Are you hurt?" John asked, patting all over Rodney, who was groaning with his eyes shut, searching for an injury. "Are you hurt, Rodney?"

"No, I'm fine," Rodney said, with his eyes still closed.

"This is no time for sarcasm."

"No, it's not sarcasm," Rodney sat up suddenly. "Colonel," Rodney said with emphasis and John sat back on his heels. "Look," Rodney said, waving his hand wildly.

John looked. There was a ragged tree limb that had once lived happily on the mainland, surrounded by lots and lots of broken glass.

"You saved my life, Rodney," John said, his mouth quirking into a smile.

"I saved your life from a _tree limb_." Rodney covered his eyes with his hand. "And I think I just got glass in my eye."

John heard the wind rushing in from where the window had shattered, and his hand was bleeding. Rodney was still swearing under his breath, gently probing the area around his eye where he suspected he'd been cut.

"There could be shards of class everywhere, under our skin," Rodney began, speaking faster and faster, "in my eye now, and I really should get you to Carson because you took the brunt of that fall with my weight on you and I think we all know by now that the floors in Atlantis aren't especially forgiving when it comes to sharp impact, and - "

"Rodney," John said, because Rodney had almost crawled on top of him in their awkward half-sitting, so that John was pushed back against the floor.

"And I know I really, really shouldn't be doing this, because it's obviously just the adrenaline, or, well, that would certainly account for the suddenness and the ill-advised situation - "

"Rodney," John said again. Rodney was so close that John could feel his chest rising and falling.

"There's glass everywhere which makes this even more dangerous and - " Rodney leaned in and kissed him, so hard that his head would have knocked back on the floor except that Rodney's hand was there, cushioning the back of his head and Rodney's tongue was in his mouth so fast John wanted to object that he hadn't even had a moment to get the feel of Rodney's lips and then their tongues slid together perfectly and John moaned and that only made Rodney kiss him harder.

Rodney pulled away the next moment, pressing an apologetic kiss to the corner of John's mouth and then held out his hand to help John up, saying, "We need to get you to Carson and I really need him to see what's in my eye because I there's no way I can do any work with a scratched cornea."

John was so in shock that he made Beckett worry that he actually had a concussion.

"We need to get someone to clean up the broken window," John said three times in a row, and Beckett just stared at him closely and then gave him another cold compress.

"Something's certainly wrong with you, Colonel," Beckett muttered under his breath. And for that reason Beckett kept John a few hours later that Rodney, even when Rodney insisted he might have ingested some of the glass.

"If it's small enough for you to have breathed it in, Rodney, it's not going to do you any harm, Ancient glass or not."

When Carson finally dismissed him from the infirmary, John took a roundabout path back to his quarters. He knew he had to talk to Rodney, or kiss him more, or something. He had to see Rodney at least, to see why he was still half-hard and thinking about Rodney's mouth.

Rodney's quarters had a lot more personality than anyone else's, and by personality, John meant computer equipment. Rodney had what amounted to a mini-laboratory on his desk, and every time John had been there, which wasn't actually all that often, it seemed to be different equipment. John knew that Rodney was always working on something. Work was his hobby here, and John wasn't sure where the divide fell between fun Ancient technology and research for the team Ancient technology.

In the middle of it all was Rodney's bed, which John had never paid any attention to before that very moment.

John wanted to ask what Rodney used to do, at home, what he used to wear, what his apartment looked like, but John didn't know what sort of questions were appropriate to ask a friend who'd just kissed you after saving your life. In truth, there were really only two things on John's mind: Rodney's bed, which was now obsessing him, and wanting to kiss Rodney again. Preferably on the bed.

Not that he was getting a chance to say anything at all, because Rodney wouldn't stop talking. He wasn't even actually facing John, but his shoulders were hunched and he spoke directly to the computer on his desk.

John reached over from his chair and ran his open palm over the quilt on Rodney's bed and sighed. Rodney looked quickly over his shoulder at the sound stuttered, his eyes wide and locked on John's hand, but then he tore his gaze away and rambled at an even higher speed.

Except John couldn't hear a word. John was too busy being completely conscious of every surface Rodney could back him up against and how he really wanted to take the time to explore every one of Rodney's fingers with his tongue and teeth.

"Rodney," John said, but after a few minutes, he knew it was futile. He sat on the corner of a chair. John wasn't sure he had ever heard Rodney talk so much about so many things John didn't understand. "Rodney," John said, and Rodney stopped for half a second. "I'm going to bed." Rodney looked incredibly relieved. "I'll see you in the morning."

The next morning, though, Rodney had left for the planet of his doppelganger.

  
It has been a total of four days that Rodney is gone from Atlantis and John knows it's time for his confession. He goes into Elizabeth's office, shuffles his feet, and starts to talk.

"Rodney told me all of this," Elizabeth says, sighing, either at the fact that John is telling her something she thinks she already knows, or the fact that he won't sit down. "You think there's something we overlooked in the tree limb? Or you think his gesture of saving you was significant?"

"Before he took me to Carson, we...." He looks down at his hands and then meets her eyes with what he hopes is a goofy grin. "We kissed."

"Kissed," Elizabeth says slowly. "Like Ralph..." she says with a sudden understanding.

"No, not like Ralph!" John finds himself disagreeing loudly. He stops. Elizabeth raises her eyebrows in a way that is now becoming quite irritating.

"John," she says, in a way that makes it clear he is supposed to answer.

"I guess I should go talk to Rodney," John says, scolded.

She smiles then. He usually likes it when she smiles but this time it is the smile that she has gotten her way, and it isn't one of his favorite smiles at all.

  
The fourth time John visits Rodney's outpost, Rodney is working on a model of the planet's terrain separating the feuding factions.

"Hello, Colonel," Rodney says, and then looks back down at his graph.

"I told Elizabeth we kissed," John says, and then thinks maybe he should have started with something else, because Rodney drops his pen and looks completely stricken.

"Why did you do that?" Rodney asks.

John launches into a speech he practiced about the Wraith and the Ancient technology and duty to the team until he is shouting out a jumbled list of sections of the city that need repair, Rodney's great theories that had saved them in the past, and Ancient devices they still haven't identified. When John finally takes a breath, it is clear Rodney had stopped listening long ago.

Rodney says, "I kissed you, Sheppard." John stops. "You said you told Elizabeth we kissed. I kissed you."

John doesn't understand the difference, but the edge in Rodney's voice tells him there is something there.

John watches Rodney immediately turn his attention to preparing lunch, slicing bread in silence. Rodney's measurements are smooth, and though the knife he's using looks dull and unwieldy, Rodney's directing all of his focus on this action and the slices come out perfect. John thinks about the speech he should have practiced, the one about what it felt like to kiss him, but it isn't the kind of speech he could say in his Ranking Military Officer voice and frankly, he isn't sure what voice to use if he were to try and tell it to Rodney. He isn't sure he would have had any voice at all to say the things he wanted to say.

While John finishes the last bites of his sandwich, Rodney returns to work on an experiment that looks remarkably like the meteorological one.

"It's not the same," Rodney says quickly. "I'm helping the people with...I'm helping them."

"And it doesn't bother you that there's a feud."

"Ralph has done fine. Maybe you should visit him while you're here." Rodney scoffs, turning all of his attention back to his work. "You really should leave soon, anyway. The feud..."

"Rodney," John says, and Rodney only mumbles. "Rodney," John says more firmly, and then he sets his hand on top of Rodney's. Rodney freezes.

"Colonel," Rodney says, with a panic in his voice that sounds as though there is a fleet of Wraith ships coming at them and he can't get a shield working.

John tightens his hand. Rodney stands up and turns into John. They are just inches apart. Rodney is licking his lips.

"This is why you left?" John says, his eyes darting to Rodney's mouth. Rodney is almost frowning, the lines around his mouth making small darts pointing down.

"No, this is why I left," Rodney corrects, and kisses John.

Rodney wraps both his hands around the back of John's head and John thinks he must be jumping the gun to be thinking how this feels familiar. But then Rodney's tongue is pushing hot and insistent into his mouth and this _is_ familiar, because John moans and Rodney kisses him harder. Rodney pulls away, just like last time, but his eyes are still closed and so John gets to feel Rodney's the gasp of surprise when John kisses him this time instead.

"Colonel," Rodney says, his thumbs on either side of John's chin. "More of what made me leave isn't what's going to bring me back."

"What?" John asks, puzzled.

Rodney sighs and says "Do I have to spell it out for you?" And apparently he decides he does, because he kisses John's neck, and then scrapes it with his teeth and John doesn't really understand what that's supposed to mean, except what it obviously means, and then Rodney's hands are sliding up underneath John's shirt.

Rodney is very, very good at this, so good that John is forced to admit to himself that he'd somehow expected Rodney to be awkward and fumbling. But then John realizes that Rodney is arrogant and pushy in social situations and isn't this sort of the same thing?

Rodney pushes John back onto the bed, lifts John's shirt over his head. John unbuckles his leg-holster like this is routine for missions and then Rodney is on top of him and John breathes into the side of his face, "Isn't there a feud going on here?" because they're just across from a window. Rodney slides a thigh between John's legs, bites his earlobe, and says, "Not for another three hours. Do you think I'm stupid?" Rodney cups John's erection through his pants and says, softly, almost hesitantly, "John?"

"No, Rodney," John gasps, bucking up into Rodney's hand, "No, I know you're not stupid." Rodney acknowledges this by unbuckling John's belt and sliding his hot hand into John's boxer-briefs.

  
They both hear the bell marking the start of the gunfire volley at the same time, and though John is boneless and one of his legs is still draped over Rodney's shoulder, he tries to sit up.

"Stay," Rodney says, his hand on John's chest. They throw on their clothes and tuck themselves in the corner away from the windows. John grabs his gun. "Don't fire back," Rodney reminds him and John scowls at him, and then Rodney kisses the line of his jaw excruciatingly slowly to the sound of bullets splintering wood.

The gunfire slows and finally dies down and Rodney gets up and pours them water. They both drink, and then Rodney's hands are underneath John's shirt, his fingers passing gently over John's nipples, his mouth on John's neck, hot, wet, his tongue pressing against John's pulse point, his teeth gently scraping his collarbone and John lets out a ragged moan and Rodney sucks, his hands tightening on John's hips. John just opens his neck up for Rodney, his hands resting on Rodney's back and then his fingers digging in as Rodney breathes into his ear, and that makes Rodney moan, and that sound in John's ear makes him gasp, and then Rodney is kissing him again and again.

Rodney pulls off John's pants like they were never on, and strokes his hands up and down John's thighs, his fingers coming up to trace his hip bones, and then he wraps his fist around the base of John's cock.

"McKay," John gasps out, and then, "Rodney," as Rodney's hand strokes up and then only a soft "Yes," as Rodney kneels and takes John's cock into his mouth.

  
Elizabeth is waiting for him in the control room when he returns, just a few hours before dawn, once again without Rodney. He watches her expression fall into a frown when she sees he is alone.

He had thought – well, he'd thought something had changed, because when John woke, Rodney wasn't working, but sitting on the edge of the bed with a cup of coffee, watching John sleep. And when John had mentioned Elizabeth and Atlantis and things to be done, Rodney had understood, and had kissed John's collarbone and poured him coffee and then lingered at the door, but Rodney's face had gone blank when John held out his hand, beckoning Rodney on the way out the door.

"John?" Elizabeth asks. "Is Rodney coming back?"

John rubs his forehead absently and hopes Elizabeth might not notice if he doesn't answer.

He finds himself promising Elizabeth he'll try again tomorrow.

  
The fifth time John tries to bring Rodney back, he tells Rodney he isn't leaving without him. Rodney shouts for a long time before finally settling on the tactic of blaming John.

"This is entirely your fault," he says, wagging a finger at John's chest.

"Hey, you kissed me first," John says, and it's a childish argument, but it's also true, and so he gives Rodney a defiant stare.

"That was embarrassing. I don't kiss people post-rescue. I certainly don't kiss someone who I know would kiss me back."

"What?" John says, startled that Rodney didn't retort back with an equally petty counterargument. It takes him a moment to parse Rodney's sentence and even then he doesn't understand. "Wait, what?"

"I left so I wouldn't do that. I wouldn't be like Ralph, taking ill-advised risks out in public."

"But you did," John says slowly. "After the tree limb, with the window and...."

"First," Rodney says, starting to pace, coming back around to face John each time to punctuate his points with a wave of his hand, "that kiss was private, second, short, third, controlled by me. How long was it before you almost got yourself killed and I couldn't do anything when we found you but shove my tongue down your throat?"

"What?" John is immobilized by the force of Rodney's conviction, but he can hardly keep up.

"The more I think about you, the less I understand and do you know that never happens to me? When I think about a problem, I solve it. I should be able to say, objectively, reasoned, I like John Sheppard. I want John Sheppard. But then there's you, with your sideways smile, you going out on suicide missions and risking your life every time you even go near the gate and sometimes we don't even need to leave Atlantis, there are quite enough dangers there, I'll have you know. I'm distracted being worried about you risking your life to save us, and while I know I'm quite capable of saving Atlantis and have proved that fact many times over, there's going to be a time when I can't save you. There's going to be some completely unexpected natural phenomenon - "

"Like the tree branch."

"Yes, like the tree branch, but if you'll remember, I did manage to save you from that, except the problem with that example is that that you wouldn't have been in front of that window in the first place if it hadn't been for me."

Rodney reaches for a mug on the table and takes a long, hard swallow of the native coffee.

"So this isn't about Ralph?" John asks hesitantly.

"No, this isn't about Ralph," Rodney growls, and gulps the rest of the coffee.

"Because it's kinda creepy how much alike you seem."

Rodney studies the empty cup. "All right, okay, this _is_ about Ralph, but you can't tell me that you wouldn't have an identity crisis that required you to get away for a little while to sort things out if you encountered your doppelganger on a trade mission to another planet, and then, that doppelganger acted out one of your fantasies with the man you've been fantasizing about, and the whole team was watching and then you had to try and figure out quite how to put it in the report."

"Well, we did agree to leave that part out of the report. You didn't mention the fantasizing part then, though."

"That's not my point."

"I know, Rodney."

"I don't like it here," Rodney says, looking out the window and yanking shut one of his curtains.

"Then come back to Atlantis," John says.

"I haven't figured everything out," Rodney insists.

"We need you."

"Well, I know I'm indispensable, but surely just a couple more days and –"

"Rodney, I need you to come back." John's voice is tight.

"I haven't figured everything out yet!" Rodney shouts and then looks stricken as he focuses on a spot just behind John. John doesn't realize for a moment that Rodney isn't staring off into space but at someone who had just come in the door.

"Colonel Sheppard," Ralph says happily.

John grins at Ralph, then turns and gives the same grin to Rodney.

"So," Ralph says. "How are you?"

"We're just leaving," Rodney says in a rush. "Colonel Sheppard came to help me pack up. This has been a really interesting experiment, living with your people, and it's a really great planet, low on allergens and good food and except for the feud it might be a nice place to live, but I need to get back to Atlantis and we're just going to get going right now. Right, Colonel?" Rodney says, an edge of panic in his voice.

"Take care, Ralph," John says and Rodney quickly throws his belongings into his canvas sack. "Keep us updated on the feud, all right, and we might be able to trade, you know, when that all gets resolved."

"It was good to meet you, John," Ralph says sincerely. Rodney rolls his eyes openly at Ralph, and grabs John's elbow, tugging him out the door.

"Come on, _John_, let's go. Goodbye, Ralph." The whole way to the gate, Rodney keeps looking over his shoulder as though he expects Ralph to be lurking just in the shadows. "I hate that man," Rodney says, as John dials home.

  
Rodney steps through the gate, and drops his suitcase so close to the event horizon that John's sure someone's going to have to kick it through. "What are you doing?" Rodney shouts at a technician, vaulting the steps to the control room two at a time. "Did you suffer severe head trauma on your last mission off-planet? Those two never go near each other!" and Rodney shoves the technician out of his way and is on his knees under the desk, disengaging some precious piece of Ancient technology with life-or-death urgency.

Elizabeth catches John in the corridor later, just when John thought her stalking was over.

"I'm glad he's back," she says, warmly, and John feels this horrible tightness in his chest when he nods. Elizabeth goes on about how three scientists have cried, how the long-range sensors were working again, all within an hour of Rodney's return. Everything seemed to be back to normal.

John thinks about Rodney's mouth pressing into the back of his knee. The way Rodney's face flushed when John climbed on top of him.

"Have you talked?" Elizabeth asks gently.

"I'm glad he's back, too," John says, and turns off down the corridor, relieved that Elizabeth hasn't followed until he realizes he has walked right into the lab. Rodney is talking with his hands, taking huge bites of a muffin, and shouting into his coffee cup.

John doesn't know what to do, and so he waves. Rodney waves back. Impatiently, John thinks, though it was hard to tell because Rodney had used the hand holding the muffin. His eyes are still bright and wide when John turns to leave, but Rodney does not get up and follow and John thinks that has to mean something.

He'd done what he had to do to get Rodney to come back. It had been necessity.

It isn't necessity now. John tells himself it isn't need that is tearing at his chest.

  
The two days following Rodney's return are quiet and John is entirely ready to forget everything about the damn dusty planet, until the faction of M1J-658 who kidnapped Ralph storms Atlantis and attempts to steal a naquadah generator. The chase through the city reminds John of a game of catch me if you can, except for the guns. John, Rodney, Teyla and Ronon disappear through the gate and then return just five minutes later, having made it clear to the villagers that stealing is not trading and they'd bring bigger guns next time. John's leg is bleeding, Ronon is gesturing with his gun, Teyla his supporting half of John's weight, and Rodney is cradling the naquadah generator in his arms like it's a baby. John slumps against the wall as Rodney hands the generator over to Zelenka.

John's vision is starting to get blurry, and he can't tell if it's the dust and the blood in his eyes or if the wound on his leg is worse than he realized. Rodney grabs him by the shoulders as John starts to slip and Rodney is right in his face. "You almost died," Rodney says, and John tries to mumble something about how he's not out of the woods when Rodney swears and says, "Might as well get it over with," and then kisses John spectacularly, his tongue sweeping over John's lips and pressing inside, his hands cupping John's head. John knows then that he's going to be fine because his heart is thrumming and pounding harder than it ever has before.

"I don't understand," John murmurs against Rodney's neck.

"Of course you don't." Rodney answers, his fingers brushing John's cheek. "But I do."

The gateroom is entirely silent. "I have to go check on the power supply," Rodney says to John and kisses John once more before he pulls away.

"Stay in the city this time," John calls out weakly, as Rodney disappears down the corridor. "Stay."


End file.
